


Highway to Nowhere

by sgamadison



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Stargate Atlantis AU: Vegas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:50:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgamadison/pseuds/sgamadison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"One hundred and one days, and he reacts the same way each time. I wouldn't call that single-minded determination as much as a lack of imagination."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highway to Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2012 McShep_Match. This story would have been scrapped had it not been for the encouragement and excellent advice from betas vida_boheme, pir8fancier, and lantean_drift. They kept me from chucking it out the window and made it a better story as a result. Thanks guys, for input that was both accurate *and* kind.

The engine wheezed and clanked to a halt, valves chattering loudly as he tried to coax another few miles out of it.

 

_C'mon baby, not here._ The car was old, hell, it was a classic. It had never failed him before.

 

The engine coughed and died. The car rolled to a gradual stop.

 

He pounded his fist on the steering wheel in frustration. Ahead of him, the road stretched out endlessly with no destination in sight. He was surrounded on all sides by desert. Heat emanated off the asphalt and wavered in the distance, suggesting the glimmer of the sea when there was nothing but rocks and sand.

 

Now that the car was no longer moving, the sun pressed in, boxing him in as though he was in an oven. The car would provide a little shade, but he would bake to death if he sat inside. He opened the door, and had placed one booted foot in the gravel when he was brought up short by something around his right wrist. He heard the sliding, sibilant sound of metal links clinking together as something bumped along the circumference of the steering wheel. Frowning, he looked down at his arm.

  
He was handcuffed to the wheel.

  
****

  
He awoke with a start, with the kind of sudden jolt that makes you feel as though you're falling, even when you're lying motionless in bed. His heart pounded against his ribs like it was trying to escape his chest. Disoriented, he tried to remember the last thing he did before sleeping, but his past was a blank. Heart still thudding uncomfortably, he sat up and looked around.

  
The room was small and sparsely furnished. An indestructible metal desk was placed in front of the only window. Beside it sat a chair. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a tall, narrow cupboard against the opposite wall. Everything about the utilitarian, grey furniture screamed 'institution.'

  
That didn't make him feel any better.

  
Conscious of damp sweat around his hairline, he tossed back the thin blanket covering him. Taking his shirt in his fingertips, he pulled it out from his chest to inspect it, peering down the length of his nose. White cotton. Scrubs. He was wearing a tiny silver cross as well. He touched it with one finger, but it held no meaning for him. He had no idea how'd he'd gotten here or what had happened before then, either. He swung his legs out of the small bed and stared down at his bare feet. He felt a weird sense of disconnect, as though he couldn't possibly be looking at his own feet and yet he obviously was doing just that.

  
_Stop thinking. Move._

  
The scuffed tile floor was cold against the soles of his feet as he stood up. He crossed over to the window. The metal desk and chair were standard office issue which could be mass ordered from any chain supply store. The view from the window looked down onto a mostly empty parking lot and the face of another part of the building. From this vantage point, he seemed to be in an L-shaped building with one wing that jutted out at right angle to his location, blocking his view of what lay beyond. Most of the windows had the blinds drawn. It gave the building the blank, half-blind appearance of an old man. For a split second, he thought he saw graceful towers rising from a sparkling sea superimposed on the ugly, boxy shape of the wing in front of him. The vision wavered for an instant like the heat rising off asphalt on a hot afternoon. But then the sunlight glinted off one of the windows across the parking lot, and the image was gone.

  
In the shade of the building sat a dusty red Camaro.

  
He frowned. Something about the car seemed familiar even as it looked out of place beside the handful of shiny SUVs and mini-vans. He stared down at it for a long moment, until it dawned on him that not only was the room was silent, even the building was quiet. He expected at the very least the sound of conversation in the hallways, of phones ringing, and trays rattling along on wheeled carts. Why he was so sure of this, he didn't know, but the heavy silence felt unnatural and unnerving.

  
Unease prompted him to leave the window and cross quickly to the tall cupboard. Inside, there was a soft shirt that was dusky plum in color and a wrinkled linen jacket in charcoal grey. A pair of jeans lay folded on the floor of the cupboard. Socks coyly peeped out of the top of a pair of battered cowboy boots. No underwear. _No problem._ He changed rapidly, growing more certain with every passing moment that someone would come and stop him. Again, he didn't know why he was so sure of this, but it felt important to get out of the room, away from this building.

  
In the desk drawer, he discovered a pair of aviator sunglasses, a well-worn leather wallet, a silver watch, and a set of keys along with some assorted change. The watch was pretty cool—the old kind he liked best, with actual hands and numbers instead of a digital readout. "Berge" was printed in bold script on the face. There was no inscription, but he felt it had to be a gift. It wasn't new. The clasp was scratched and the metal hasp was thinning, but it fit around his wrist like an old friend.

  
The keys were old, too. Your basic car keys on a chain. No fobs with buttons for automatic door locks or keyless entry. Pocketing the keys and money, he flipped open the wallet. He wouldn't have been surprised if moths had flown out; it had a starved feel to it. A couple of tens. A single credit card, the gilt numbers worn off. The driver's license gave the name and address of one John Sheppard, Las Vegas, Nevada.

  
_You don't have to be John Sheppard._

  
It was a weird thought, there and gone so fast he almost didn't have time to process it. What difference did it make who he was, as long as it got him out of here? Where ever 'here' was. Right?

  
His subconscious, thwarted once already, retreated into silence.

  
_Well, fuck you, then._ The wallet fit in his jeans pocket like it had been poured from a mold to conform to his ass. He put on the sunglasses and headed for the door. 'John' was as good a name as any.

  
The hallway stretched out in both directions, disturbingly straight when he somehow expected a gentle curve. Mentally flipping a coin, he turned right. He walked as though he had every reason to be there, as though he knew where he was going.

  
The corridor ended in a T-intersection. The passageway to the right was much as the one he'd just walked—a long series of closed doors that ended with a window that had the blinds drawn. A set of elevators were located in the passage to the left. He went over to them and pressed the call button. The hand that reached for the button looked foreign to him. There was dirt under his nails, and his knuckles were scraped and crusted with dried blood. Lean, strong fingers bore calluses that he instinctively knew came more from handling weapons than writing reports. What had he been up to? _Who are you?_

  
He resisted the urge to shove his hand into his pocket as he waited for the elevator to arrive, instead letting it rest at his side. His fingers curled into a fist, and he forced them to relax.

  
The elevator came to his floor and the doors opened. Inside, a young woman wearing pale green scrubs and a white lab jacket stood near the control panel. She had applied her powder blue eye shadow with a heavy hand. Her honey blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, making her look like a high school cheerleader playing dress up for the day. She was holding a clipboard and had a teal-blue stethoscope hanging around her neck.

  
"Going down," she said with an arch tone, as though she knew something funny that he didn't. He hesitated only briefly before getting on.

  
"Floor?" Her voice was excessively chipper.

  
"Ground." Let her think he was an asshole. He didn't care. His well of charm, once called bottomless by Alicia, had gone dry a long time ago in the desert sun.

  
_You don't know anyone named Alicia, do you?_

  
This time the voice in his head was mocking, and it didn't quite sound like his own. Fuck, he just needed to get out of this place. It was starting to play games with his head.

  
The elevator doors opened into a lobby. A security guard sat behind a large desk monitoring an impressive bank of camera feeds. A pair of guards checked people as they came through a metal detector. Everyone wore identity cards slung from lanyards around their necks. As they reached the first checkpoint, they held up the cards to be scanned before clearing the gate. Once the card had been read and accepted, the guard waved each person toward the detector. When someone approached it, a shimmering blue light filled the unit. It looked like a sheet of water, but each person passed through without showing any signs of being wet.

  
Surely getting out of here wouldn't be as hard as getting in. Especially if he acted like he belonged. His hand went automatically to his belt to reach for a badge that wasn't there.

  
"You sure about this?"

  
He'd almost forgotten the blonde, and turned his head to glance at her. He wasn't sure what she saw in his expression, but it made her lift her chin defensively.

  
"You don't have to go, you know." Her tone was very matter-of-fact, but there was a curious note of resignation underneath it as well.

  
He walked out of the elevator without a word. She remained behind as the doors slid closed, and he wondered briefly why she had been in the elevator in the first place. Too many unanswered questions. Not enough options. Feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck, he by-passed the quiet progression of people through the detector and headed for one of the glass doors. No one followed him. No one tried to stop him.

  
The dry heat hit him in the face as he moved lightly down the short flight of stairs and onto the sidewalk. It beat down between his shoulders and made him think of shedding his jacket. Unwilling to stop for even that brief action, he kept moving. Walking briskly, he headed in the general direction of where he'd seen the parked car. He fingered the keys in his pocket, wishing he had a gun.

  
_Why do you think you need a gun?_

  
He didn't know. Having a gun seemed right and proper and he felt naked without one. More naked than he did by the lack of underwear. The absence of a gun felt like a limb amputation. As he rounded the corner and saw the Camaro sitting at the far end of the lot, it took every ounce of willpower not to break into a jog. A sense of relief washed over him, as though he'd shucked boots of cement and could walk normally again. Almost there.

  
It was unlocked. The paint had faded unevenly in the Nevada sun, so that that it was hard to tell red from rust in places. The dashboard was starting to crack and the hubcaps were missing. It didn't matter, as long as the damn thing ran. Sliding behind the wheel, he placed the key in the ignition. Destination was unimportant. Anywhere but here.

  
The engine came to life with a roar, the car rumbling beneath him full of promise and power. He cracked his first smile. Gunning the motor, he peeled out of the parking lot at a good clip, the dust blowing off the hood as he sped toward the highway.

  
****

  
"Well, there he goes again, just like he always does."

  
Rodney turned away from his observation post at the window to look back at Jennifer as she entered the room. He opened his mouth to tell her that her eye shadow made her look more like a showgirl than a doctor, but he clamped his lips shut in a thin line instead. Woolsey had threatened him once with 'sensitivity training', and though he doubted that Woolsey would really push it—he was, after all, Rodney McKay—he'd seen a different side to Woolsey recently. He was no longer sure Dick Woolsey wouldn't insist if someone complained again—even if it was Jennifer. He made a noncommittal noise and went back to watching the cloud of dust that marked Sheppard leaving the area.

  
Jennifer came to stand beside him. She folded her arms, tapping her fingers lightly against the back of the clipboard. "This is a waste of time," she said, her voice sharp with annoyance. "Surely you can see that this little experiment of yours is a failure. No matter how many obstacles you do or don't throw in his way, he does a bolt every time. Sometimes I think he enjoys it more when you force him to escape rather than just let him walk out. It feeds into his paranoia tendencies."

  
Rodney watched the road until Sheppard's car was no longer visible. "Aren't you even slightly fascinated by his utter determination? Really, it's as though running was genetically programmed into him. Even without his memories, he takes off as though the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels. No plan, no curiosity about where he is or why he's here. He just... leaves." He turned away from the window at last to face her.

  
Really, he was going to have to say something about the eye shadow. It was atrocious.

  
"I think it's cruel. Sheppard isn't your personal lab rat to watch run around in the maze of your own making."

  
Rodney caught himself fingering his gold wedding band and forced himself to stop. "Cruel?" He laughed, aware that it was not a particularly pleasant sound. "I thought this was your idea in the first place. And aren't you the one that's so big on the concept of a no-kill shelter?"

  
She took a step closer, raising the clipboard just a little as a sort of shield between them. "As plans go, this one doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Besides, even a no-kill shelter can be inhumane if there is no hope for adoption. Life in a permanent cage. Is that the sort of life you want for Sheppard—the man who always runs?" She nodded toward the empty road.

  
Rodney took a moment to tamp down his ever-increasing irritation with her. "Of course not. I'm working on the alternatives, you know that. You have to admit, though, it's fascinating."

  
"The project or John Sheppard?" Jennifer had that slight mocking tone in her voice that Rodney always hated. Enough to make him question his own motives yet not quite enough to call her on it. She went on without waiting for his answer. "What difference does it make how he behaves in this environment? Maybe his lack of curiosity stems from the amnesia. Maybe it's a side effect of the system itself. He was certainly persistent enough before when we wanted him to stop his investigation."

  
"I think that was in part because we _did_ want him to stop investigating. He smelled a conspiracy, and that spurred him on." Rodney shrugged. "Or maybe because this has nothing to do with a case, he just doesn't care enough to ask any questions. Not if it's just about him." Any other person would want to know more about his situation—how he got there, what had happened to him before, what was going to happen next. Sheppard simply took off like a shot every single time. It wasn't normal, damn it.

  
"We had a deal." Jennifer looked truculent, like a small child at a birthday party who had realized she wasn't getting a pony. In one of those weird sidebar thoughts, Rodney wondered what the two of them would be like in that alternate universe they'd encountered. Would they even be together? Would he have the upper hand, as he did now, or would he have truckled to the obvious charms of her youth and beauty, allowing her to lead him by the nose? _Or other parts, as the case may be._ He smiled before he realized where she was going with her question.

  
"A deal?"

  
"About outside relationships."

  
He frowned, glancing around her to make sure there was no one else who could hear them, even though they were clearly alone. _Force of habit._ "We do have a deal, and I don't see where I've violated any part of it. Or are you forgetting our marriage is in name only?"

  
Her face altered, softening and becoming wistful, looking more like a teenager than ever. "There was a time when I thought we might become more than that. Besides, you're not exactly hiding the fact that you're obsessed with him."

  
Rodney gaped at her. "This isn't... I don't..." He was both shocked and secretly pleased that Jennifer hoped for something more than merely riding his name into the Stargate program. It was... flattering. Not that she didn't deserve being in the program under her own merit, but her very youth had made the SGC reluctant to consider her. As Rodney McKay's wife, they had been more inclined to accept her application.

  
And as Rodney McKay's hot young wife, the SGC had turned a blind eye to certain aspects of his sexuality. It had been a good deal for both of them.  
He fingered the ring again. Belatedly, he realized he hadn't answered her when her face took on that knowing expression that always made him grind his teeth. "You're being ridiculous. I'm not obsessed. Anyway, he's not—I just—we owe him one, you know?"

  
Jennifer reached out and took him by the arm, giving him a little squeeze. "Then let him go. This is never going to work, and you know it."

  
He shook off her grasp. "This has bigger implications than just saving one Detective John Sheppard. Enormous implications. Think about it. If we can make this work for him—"

  
"Yes, yes," she interrupted, followed by a long-suffering sigh as they began rehashing the same old arguments. "But you're never going to solve anything if you keep coming here to ogle Sheppard." She caught his arm again, steering him away from the window and toward the door.

  
"I resent the use of the term 'ogling'." Rodney sniffed. He allowed himself to be guided out the door and into the hallway, where he chose to move under his own steam. "I find it interesting that he repeats the same pattern again and again, that's all. Even when I change the parameters of the setting. That's some pretty serious determination, you have to admit. You may be right, however, about this being a side effect, either due to the constraints made by the amnesia, or a factor of the technology itself. I could tweak the parameters a bit more—"

  
"One hundred and one days, and he reacts the same way each time. I wouldn't call that single-minded determination as much as a lack of imagination." Jennifer's voice was dry. She matched his pace as they walked together down the cool, dimly lit corridor.

  
"He's managing to manipulate minor things though. I don't know how, but he does. He changes details, adds things, things he shouldn't know anything about. And all the while, he's oblivious to what he's doing. He's a _natural_ , Jen." The obvious excitement in his voice made him cringe inside. Having taught himself how to hide his enthusiasms a long time ago because any enthusiasm was equated with weakness, he should have known better than to show them now.

  
Jennifer's smile was unusually sly. Rodney had disturbing vision of what she might look like in twenty years, and the thought was unsettling. "Oh, right, a natural. That's why you're fascinated with him. It has nothing to do with the fact that he's just your type."

  
"My type?" Rodney gave her a modified stink eye, the one that had a modicum of affection associated with it. "As you well know, my type is blonde, beautiful, yet amazingly intelligent."

  
"You'd get a lot further with _that_ type if you left out the 'yet amazingly', you know." Jennifer's stink eye in return didn't strike Rodney as having any affectionate undertones at all. "I'm talking about your _other_ type. Dark, brooding, and independent to the point of avoidance. Unbelievably attractive because he knows he's good looking, and he doesn't give a rat's ass if you think so or not."

  
"You forgot suicidal," Rodney said. They rounded a corner and headed down another featureless hallway. "'Which isn't..." he started to explain, but then stopped. 'Suicidal' wasn't part of his type, but rather it was part of Sheppard's makeup. Of course, she knew that.

  
Jennifer shook her head. "Not necessarily suicidal. Or let's put it this way, not actively. Otherwise it would have happened a long time ago. Face it. Look at the suicide rates among the military—higher than the number of people lost to combat in Afghanistan and Iraq."

  
"You sound like you've given this a lot of thought." That bugged Rodney on some level, and he was startled to recognize the emotion as jealousy. _Jealousy for whom though? Sheppard or Jennifer?_

  
"Me and just about everyone who's laid eyes on the man." Jennifer raised both eyebrows and shot Rodney a sideways glance. "Seriously, Rodney, he's hot." She sighed, a strangely unhappy sound. "That's just part of it, though. He's damaged. Do you have any idea how attractive that combination is? Everyone who's met him wants to save him—from himself."

  
"Is that so wrong? I happen to think he's worth saving," Rodney snapped, despite knowing it was a foolish reaction on his part. Worse, he was proving her point about his attraction to Sheppard. Anxious to qualify his response, he began listing all the reasons why Sheppard was so valuable to the Stargate program. "He's smart, resourceful, and there's nothing wrong with his sense of courage, even if he's lacking a bit in the reasonable respect for personal safety department. Not to mention he has one of the strongest ATA genes we've ever seen. If we'd only known about him before that mess in Afghanistan, or even right after, before he'd had years of self-castigation—"

  
"Rodney." Jennifer cut him off, her forehead creased with a worried frown. "Don't try to save Sheppard."

  
He opened his mouth but she interrupted him again. "No, I mean it. _Everyone_ wants to save him. Don't try. He'll only end up using you and resenting you for it later. Trust me on this one. You might think you're getting somewhere with him, that maybe even you have a chance at a real connection, but he'll disappear in a cloud of dust just like he has every day since he arrived here."

  
Rodney treated her to the famous eye roll, the one that said, _Please, this is me we're talking about here._

  
They paused in front of a closed door. Behind it, Rodney could hear the hum of the command center, the hive of activity that never slept. It was a bit like what he imagined it would be like living on a ship, where the engines always murmured in the background.

  
Jennifer frowned at him again. "Maybe you should let him go."

  
"We've already been over this," Rodney snapped, "He saved the whole fucking planet, for Chrissakes!"

  
Jennifer blinked, raising both eyebrows and tucking her head back on her chin at the force of his statement. "Calm down, Rodney. I meant let him go _here_."

  
Rodney folded one arm across his chest and rested the other elbow on it so he could tap his lips with his forefinger. "You might just have something in that," he said. He abruptly stopped tapping his lips to snap his fingers and point at her. "It's going to take a little time for me to set things up..."

  
"He's not going anywhere." Her eyebrow was delicately ironic.

  
****

  
He pulled off the highway and into a small, isolated gas station when the gauge fell to the quarter mark on the tank. Twenty dollars wasn't going to get him very far, not with a gas-guzzler like the Camaro. He opened the car door and stepped out, stretching slightly. As he shut the door, he noticed the duffle bag behind the driver's seat for the first time. He reached in the open window and lifted the bag to rest it on the edge of the door. Inside the bag lay wads of cash, some of it loose, most bound in packets of twenties. It had to be thousands of dollars.

  
Looks like he could buy breakfast after all.

  
Glancing around casually to make sure no one was watching, he peeled off several twenties and put them in his pocket, zipping the duffle and taking it around to the trunk of the car. After he'd locked the bag in the trunk, he undid the gas cap. He stared out at the dusty highway as the pump glugged gasoline into the car. The mountains in the distance didn't look real. Their edges were too sharp, like a painted backdrop on a movie set. The road, like the corridor in the building, stretched out in both directions with no clear indication of which way to go. All he knew was that 'back' wasn't an option.

  
The gas station looked deserted, but he could see lights on inside. Another car appeared on the highway from the direction he'd come. The sight of it made his muscles tense, preparing for some as yet undefined action. The perspective across the desert made it seem as though the car was moving slowly, though he knew it was traveling at highway speed. Seeing it felt like a warning, the way the sight of buzzards wheeling in the sky overhead meant there was something dead nearby. He wasn't surprised when the vehicle slowed and pulled into the gas station.

  
A black Hummer with tinted windows. Nothing could have said 'government' more. The man who stepped out of the driver's side was wearing an expensive suit and dark sunglasses. He glanced over at the Camaro in seemingly benign curiosity and then went to remove the gas cap of his vehicle.

  
John finished pumping gas and replaced the nozzle. Something about the other man made him uneasy, despite an overwhelming urge to make a barely understood joke about some dude named Horatio Caine. He capped his own gas tank and walked casually toward the station.

  
A cow bell jingled at the entrance when he opened the door. A man with fuzzy hair and glasses looked up from the register where he was reading the paper. He eyed John with a watchful expression, as though he wasn't certain John might be a thief. John crossed to the counter and pulled out three twenties.

 

"Forty-eight fifty on pump two." He placed the cash on the counter and pushed it toward the cashier.

  
The fuzzy haired man nodded as he rang up the sale. "Eleven dollars and fifty cents is your change," he said. His accent was pronounced, from somewhere in the Balkans, John guessed. Behind the cashier, merchandise representing space ships and small gray aliens with large black eyes figured predominantly. A rack by the cash register held brochures for the local sight-seeing attractions. Apparently KFC had created a giant company logo on the ground outside Rachel. According to the brochure, it was the first logo that could be seen from outer space.

  
"What's with all the Asgard?" John indicted the merchandise.

  
The man gaped at him a second, and then hastily took off his glasses and began polishing them on his shirt. "The Asgard?" he gulped out, concentrating on his lenses.

  
"Yeah." John frowned. "You know, all the little alien guys."

  
The cashier opened and closed his mouth like a guppy out of water. "We, um, call them the Greys."

  
"Original," John drawled. He swept his change off the counter and pocketed it. The cashier stared at him as though _he_ might be an alien, and it occurred to John that alien abduction was as good a story as any. Given the kitsch, he must be somewhere near Area 51. Suddenly the whole morning seemed to make sense in a weird way, and John found himself smiling at the cashier.

  
The small man smiled back at him nervously.

  
John glanced out the storefront window. "How far to Vegas?" he asked.

  
The cashier pursed his lips. "About one hundred and forty miles, give or take. A little over two and half hours."

  
John didn't particularly want to go to Vegas. He just didn't know where else to go. He hardly thought he'd be welcomed if he showed up at Groom Lake after all these years. Not to mention, for all he knew, the place he'd just left was affiliated with Nellis Air Force Base, though all of his instincts screamed 'not'.  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guy from the Hummer walking toward the station.

  
"Any place good to eat around here?" John asked. He really wanted to be gone before the slick dude from the Hummer came into the store, but if he left now, they'd meet in the doorway.

  
"There's Oma's Diner," the cashier said doubtfully. "Stay on Highway 375 until you hit Rachel. You can't miss it."

  
"Thanks." John thought the cashier might be about to say something else when he realized the guy was frozen in place. He had his mouth open and one hand partially raised, as though caught mid-action. John felt as though he should reach across with a can of oil and lubricate his joints, when suddenly the man began to move again.

  
"Have a safe trip," he said, almost mechanically.

  
Frowning behind his shades, John turned and bumped into the man from the Hummer, who'd removed his shades and had that arrogant expression on his face that John somehow associated with people in power. What was weird was that he hadn't heard the cowbells, and besides, how the hell could that guy have moved so fast? The other man took hold of his arms to keep John from running him down. Up close, John was struck by the storm-grey blueness of the man's eyes, and the heady smell of his aftershave. It was one of those piney scents that probably had a name like Timber Wolf or Marlboro Man, but it smelled good just the same. Something primal and hungry stirred at the scent and the firm contact.

  
"Sorry, sorry," the man said pleasantly in a clipped sort of manner, letting go of him immediately before John could protest.

  
Giving the guy a lip-curling grimace that could pass for a smile, John went around him and outside into the sun-baked parking lot. He crossed quickly to the Camaro and got in. Breakfast could wait. He wanted to put some distance between him and the man with the superior smile.

  
Once back out on the road, he drove until signs pointed him toward interstate 93. He kept driving. He stopped for gas when he needed it, stocking up on junk food and soda until the next pit stop. He drove all day, putting as much distance between him and Area 51 as possible. The interstate took him south through Idaho, where the red bluffs of the desert gave way to the black soil of crop-rich fields. At Kingman, he made a marked detour north, deciding on a whim to head toward the Grand Tetons.

  
The setting sun was a huge red disc on the horizon when he pulled into the small roadside motel. The sight triggered some muddled schoolboy teachings concerning _The Red Badge of Courage_ and the definition of disillusionment. He rolled his head and grimaced as he put a hand up to rub the tight muscles in the back of his neck. Johnny Cash was singing "Like A Solider" on the cassette deck, so he sat in the car with the engine idling while the song finished playing. Something about the primary melody reminded him of another famous song, but he was damned if he could think what it was or who had sung it. Someone who'd crashed and burned, that much he knew. Names of musicians who had played hard and died young floated around on the edge of his ability to recall them, and he eventually stopped trying to remember. The name would come to him later.

  
He turned off the key in the ignition and sat behind the wheel for a moment, watching a small brown sparrow pick at crumbs in the gravel of the motel parking lot. Even though it was still early, it was time to stop for the night. He felt queasy from a day of eating nothing but junk food, and he was tired of driving. There was something comforting about the marquee for the Pegasus Inn, even though the neon sign was burned out in places.

  
The woman who checked him in was attractive and kind. She was slim with dark hair, dressed in a short-sleeved red shirt that contrasted nicely with her black slacks. What he appreciated the most was that she got him a room without any fuss. She took his cash without question and handed him an old-fashioned key with a large plastic tag. He smiled at her automatically, banking on the fact that it was still good enough to do its job even though he didn't really feel like smiling. All he wanted was to crash into bed and maybe watch some mindless television for an hour or two.

  
Tired as he was, he was still awake when the 11 o'clock news came on. He watched it through half-slitted eyes, wondering idly what the next day might bring. His lids slid closed between one moment and the next, while the news anchor spoke calmly of chevrons encoded.

  
****

  
He woke with a start, his heart pounding as though he'd been running a marathon in his sleep. For a moment he considered pulling the covers over his head and going back to bed with a general 'fuck you' to the universe, but even as he considered it, he knew it was impossible. He had to get out of wherever he was while he still could.

  
The room held very little furniture. He found some clothes inside the cupboard, along with a sealed plastic bag. He opened it to discover a white shirt pockmarked with bloodstains so old they appeared black. _Bullet holes._ He left the bag open on the floor of the cupboard and quickly dressed in the shirt, jacket, and jeans hanging within.

  
With a weird sense of déjà vu, he made his way out of the building and toward the parking lot, where he'd seen a car that looked old enough to belong to the keys he held in his hand.

  
"I thought you were going to let him go," Jennifer said, her voice tight with disapproval as she joined Rodney at the observation window. The Camaro roared down the open highway with clouds of dust blowing off its hood as it drove out of sight.

  
"I am," Rodney snapped, and then made a conscious effort to moderate his tone. "I had to take the safeties offline." His hand hovered over a large glowing blue button on the controls.

  
"You _did_ get clearance for this, right?" Jennifer asked. Rodney could hear the uncertainty in her voice, and it echoed his own concerns. Still there was a moment of nervous excitement when he pressed the blue button.

  
"Of course," he lied.

  
****

  
He couldn't find a radio station that played anything but country music. It felt familiar and painful at the same time. When Blake Shelton's "A Hundred Miles" came on the station next, and John switched the radio off. Unlike the man in Shelton's song, there was no one waiting at the end of the drive to grant John forgiveness if he begged for it.

  
The very act of turning off the radio made him realize that he knew how the song went—which meant that it had triggered some sort of memory. Instead of pushing the thought from him as unwanted, he tried concentrating on it instead. Eyes half closed, he could see the saw-dusted covered aisle of a barn. Music played on a beat-up boom box as horses with gleaming coats quietly munched hay within their stalls. The memory was overlaid with the scent of clean leather, saddle soap, and sun-dried grass. It drew a faint smile from him.

  
Without warning, the memory supplied the _whup-whup-whup_ sound of helicopter blades and a landscape so bleak that it looked like the set of a B sci-fi movie. The smell of cigarette smoke and motor oil blotted out the pastoral scents of before. And though he wouldn't call himself a fan, he knew why the type of music was so familiar. There wasn't a barn or a military base he could think of that didn't play country music twenty-four/seven.  
It made him a little sick inside.

  
_What you need now is a little rock and roll._

  
He began to sing "Me and Bobby McGee" in a voice as cracked as the car's dashboard. A vague memory about a similar-sounding song teased him, but he ruthlessly shoved it away. When he got to the line about "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," he mashed the accelerator to the floor just to see how fast the Camaro could go.

  
He was starting to feel hungry when he finally stopped for gas. The sign outside the deserted looking station proudly identified itself as being the last place to get gas for one hundred miles (or this galaxy, depending on whether you were hoping for an alien abduction). The marquee had a huge head of one of those bug-eyed grey aliens from the X-Files, and proclaimed Food-Beer-Tobacco in bold letters. The price of a carton of cigarettes was posted along with the cost of gas by the gallon.

  
The duffle bag full of money had come as a pleasant surprise. He quickly accepted the realization that he couldn't have come upon that much money honestly, and that he was probably on the run. With a mental shrug, he transferred some of the money to his wallet and locked the duffle in the trunk. Someone would come looking for him, of that he was certain. Probably just as well he didn't have a solid plan of where to go next—it would be harder to track him if he simply chose his direction by throwing imaginary darts at a map. He glanced around at the empty landscape as he pumped the gas. Then again, there was such a thing as being too out in the open. Maybe it would make more sense to lose himself in the crowds of Vegas or Reno.

  
A car appeared on the horizon as he was walking toward the station. He watched it casually as he crossed to the building, noting that it, too, slowed down as it came upon the gas station and pulled into the lot.

  
The car was nice, he'd give it that much. One of the new Mercedes convertibles—the SL65 from the sound of its throaty turbochargers as it pulled beside the other pump. The silver vehicle made his car look shabby by comparison. The driver's short hair was blown up into startled tufts. Mirrored shades hid his eyes, but he nodded at John as he popped the release to the gas tank and got out to fill the car.

  
Recent purchase, John guessed. Mid-life crisis. Still fit enough, judging from the way his sports jacket hung on his thin frame. Dot com type. Silicon Valley, no doubt. Probably had a young wife back home who taught yoga.

  
_Or it could be the guy who wanted his money back._

  
John went inside the gas station.

  
The cashier had a faint accent that John couldn't quite place, but suspected was Eastern European in origin. His face had a sort of blankness that looked as though something was missing, and John guessed he was wearing contact lenses.

  
John glanced over the sausage biscuits sitting under a heat lamp, the waxed paper wrappers shiny with grease. His stomach rebelled at the thought, and he got himself a cup of coffee to go instead. "Know of a good restaurant around here?" he asked the cashier as he paid his bill.

  
The bells on the door jangled and the driver of the Mercedes came in. He took off his sunglasses, fumbled with them a bit, and tucked them his jacket pocket. Spying the coffee maker, he made a beeline for it.

  
The cashier cleared his throat. "Oma's diner is not too far up the road. Best pie around, if you like that sort of thing."

  
Was it his imagination, or had the cashier raised his voice so the Mercedes Guy could hear him too? Nah, that was paranoid, even for him.

  
"I like pie," he said, as he accepted his change. He left without glancing toward the Mercedes Guy again.

  
Twenty minutes later, he pulled off the highway along a diner designed like one of those old Silver Airstream trailers from the fifties. Everything seemed stuck in the past today. A small sign over the door read 'Oma's'. Probably some family nickname for 'granny'. As he entered, he hoped the place would have the kind of food the décor suggested—thick cheeseburgers layered with lettuce and tomato, stacks of crispy onion rings. Or maybe a plate of waffles smothered in syrup. His stomach rumbled in pleasant anticipation. He wondered how long it had been since the last time he'd eaten.

  
Old advertisements hung in new frames on the walls, along with vinyl albums from the great artists of the fifties and sixties. The floor was white and black tile, the tables had red-checked cloths, and the booths had those little tableside jukeboxes. Unlike Johnny Rockets or some other chain restaurant, these looked like the real deal.

  
The place was nearly empty, save for a man with wire rimmed glasses working on an open journal in front of him, surrounded by stacks of dirty plates. His dark blonde hair was in need of a trim and had the bookish look of a scholar or student. He didn't look up as John passed him to take a seat at the counter near the register. John took off his shades and hung them in the collar of his shirt.

  
On his left, half a coconut cream cake stood in tempting glory under glass on a cake stand. A waitress came out of double doors from the kitchen with a heavy ceramic mug in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. Her name tag said 'Oma'. Nothing like having the owner wait on you. She set the mug in front of him and filled it without asking. She didn't offer cream or sugar. It was as though she knew he took it strong and black.

  
"Anything you want, you name it, we have it. We offer breakfast round the clock, if that's what you'd like. Today's blue plate is fried flounder with green beans and mashed potatoes, and fresh cornbread too."

  
John's mouth watered. He knew with a sudden, deep conviction that this had been one of his favorite meals growing up. He could almost picture himself sitting in another diner like this one, a lean man in denim urging him to order what he liked. It felt like a Sunday ritual, and a smile tugged at one side of his mouth in remembrance. Perversely, he felt as though he should order something else. Oma smiled at him as though reading his mind. She was about his age, with a kind face and lines around her eyes. He felt relaxed around her for some reason.

  
"Just coffee, thanks. And some pie."

  
She left before he could ask what kind they had.

  
The smell of frying bacon made him rethink his order when his stomach rumbled again, and he had to admit, he longed for just one bite of some hot buttered cornbread. Fresh from the oven, it would be crisp on the edges and crumbly in the center and the butter would melt in the middle, keeping it from being too dry. He blinked, uncertain why he was suddenly obsessed with food. He must just be hungry. Maybe it had to do with the mouth-watering odors coming from the kitchen. All of his senses seemed heightened now—as though everything before the diner had been filmed in black and white and he'd just walked into the Technicolor portion of the movie. He seemed to recall something about scent being tied into memory. Getting his memories back was a good thing, right?  
He wondered about that. There was something infinitely soothing in not remembering anything, in just living for the moment. Did he want to remember the guy who had a bag full of someone else's money and banged up hands that looked like they fought for a living?

  
The door to the diner burst open and the Mercedes Guy tumbled in, as though he hadn't expected the door to give when he pushed on it. He straightened to stare, open mouthed, at his surroundings, before making his way toward the counter. A whole diner of empty seats, and he chose to sit down on the stool beside John.

  
Yeah, definitely not a coincidence.

  
He was still looking around with the air of a tourist when he caught John's glance. "Who knew such a place was out here in the middle of nowhere?" He grinned, his expression inviting John to join in his appreciation of the diner. His smile faded when John did not smile back. Unlike when John had sat down, no waitress magically appeared with coffee. After a moment, Mercedes Guy began tapping his fingers restlessly on the counter. He looked longingly at John's mug.

  
John had to resist the urge to push it in the guy's direction. After all, he'd just had some coffee, and this guy looked desperate.

  
_What the hell was wrong with him?_ He cupped his mug protectively. The small act made him conscious of the dirtiness of his hand.

  
Mercedes Guy sat up expectantly when Oma returned with John's pie. She placed a small plate with a slightly steaming wedge of apple pie and a scoop of melting ice cream in front of John. The smell of apples and cinnamon wafted to his nose. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had apple pie, and suddenly there was nothing on earth that he wanted more. He closed his lips over a forkful, the crust so light and flaky that it melted in his mouth.

  
Oma seemed to be waiting for his reaction, so he murmured his thanks. She turned away from the counter.

  
"Hey! Can I have some service here?"

  
Mercedes Guy lost some of his smugness when she turned back to face him. She stood, an eyebrow raised, one fist planted squarely on her hip.  
"Um, please?" Mercedes Guy added.

  
"Be with you in a minute," she said, taking the coffee pot and heading over to the booth where the man scribbling in his notebook was seated. He looked up with a beautiful smile as she poured him some more coffee, but went immediately back into his work again.

  
John had a passing moment of appreciation for the Book Guy's good looks, but nothing more than that. He felt overwhelmingly tired. Tired of running. Tired of having nowhere to go at the end of the day. No place to call home.

  
"Holy shit," Mercedes Guy said, his voice quivering with excitement. "That's Daniel Jackson! Which means, oh my god, that means this place is some sort of Ascension—" he broke off abruptly when he realized John was looking at him. He grinned weakly and fell to inspecting the menu in its plastic folder.  
Oma went back behind the counter and stood in front of Mercedes Guy.

  
"Right," he said, laying down the menu to rub his hands together with delight. "I'd like some bacon and eggs, oh, and the pancakes, but please, no butter on them actually on them, just the syrup on the side, thanks. And no orange juice!" He paused to shudder. "Not even on the same tray. I'm highly allergic."  
Oma walked away without writing down his order.

  
"And no grits!" he called after her. "Nasty stuff, grits." He muttered to himself as the kitchen doors swung shut behind her. "You might as well be eating porridge." He gave an eloquent shudder.

  
John kept eating his pie. It was pretty damn good pie. The sweet, cold ice cream went perfectly with warm tart pie, and he made sure he had some of each in every bite.

  
Mercedes Guy fidgeted as he waited for his food. He flipped through the tabs on the jukebox selections at the counter. He glanced repeatedly at the man he'd called Jackson. He stood up and collected a newspaper from the end of the counter, and brought it back to his seat, muttering over its contents, the paper crackling as he held it up in front of him.

  
Oma came back with his food and he beamed at her. He tossed aside the paper and dove into his meal, humming his appreciation. A small smile played briefly about her lips as she watched him eat.

  
John stood up, leaving a ten on the counter beside his plate. Mercedes Guy looked up sharply; he glanced at John and then at his plate, obviously torn between the two.

  
That's when John knew for sure this guy was following him.

  
"Restroom?" he asked Oma.

  
"Around the corner." She indicated the partial wall jutting out into the end of the room. There must be another passageway behind it.

  
John walked casually to the corner of the room, found the small hallway, and entered it.

  
Oma was standing in front of the two doors to the restrooms.

  
Her presence made him catch his breath. _Neat trick._ He wondered how she'd beaten him back here.

  
"There is another exit, if you prefer." Her words had an odd, formal sound to them, as though she were granting him an invitation.

  
He said nothing. He'd found that by keeping his mouth shut, people often volunteered more information than they otherwise would.

  
"If you are tired of running, you need not go with him. You can come with us." Her voice was so kind it felt as though she'd taken his heart into her hands and was carefully crushing it.

  
He was suddenly certain he'd had this offer before. More than once. Maybe not from her, but from someone like her, and that every time his answer had been 'no'. Which was creepy because he couldn't remember ever having experienced anything quite like this before.

  
"You have fewer options this time." She spoke as though he'd spoken his thoughts aloud. "You can go with him, or come with us, or keep running. Either way, you must choose."

  
He indicated the door to the men's room. "I think I'll just take a leak for now."

  
Her mouth twitched in a comic combination of disapproval and exasperation, as though his response wasn't unexpected.

  
He paced around in the rest room feeling trapped and yet liking none of his choices. The sight of his dirty hands made him grunt with disgust, and he took off his jacket and hung it on the back of the door. Rolling his sleeves up to the elbows, he attacked his hands and forearms with the foam soap from the wall dispenser, using water almost too hot to bear. He scrubbed at his hands, intent on getting the grime off, but even after his skin was pink and tender with his efforts, he still felt dirty.

  
He collected his jacket and went back out into the hallway. Oma was gone.

  
Mercedes Guy was gone as well, his seat empty, his plate practically licked clean. The man must have inhaled his food. John wasn't sure where he could have possibly put it all.

  
He left the diner, stepping back out into the brilliant, unforgiving sunshine. He put his shades back on and debated on whether or not to put on his jacket. He chose to leave it slung over his arm instead.

  
Mercedes Guy was sitting in his car, fussing with something near the dashboard. John walked past him to the Camaro and tossed his jacket through the window. He opened the door and got in. When he put the key in the ignition, the starter made a grinding noise, but did not turn over. He tried again.

  
Mercedes Guy appeared alongside his car door. "Problems? I might be able to help. I'm pretty good at fixing things."

  
John's hands briefly twisted on the steering wheel, as though he was wringing its neck. He abruptly opened the car door, forcing Mercedes Guy to step back. He advanced on the guy, who looked a little nervous. "Especially if you're the one who broke it in the first place, right?"

  
"What?" Mercedes Guy sputtered. "No, why would I do—okay, you know what?" Obviously indignant, outrage overcame common sense. "I was just trying to help. You look like you're stranded here in the middle of nowhere. I thought you might need a hand, but what was I thinking? Of course not. You have Lone Wolf stamped all over you. Fine. Work it out for yourself. I was just trying to give you another option besides going back in there." He jerked his head sharply in the direction of the diner. His glare at John seemed excessively angry for a total stranger. "Of _course_ , John Sheppard can't ask for any help, no, no, not with that giant chip on his shoulder. Can't even wait for a little back up, like a sensible—"

  
The rest of his sentence was cut off as John grasped him by his shirt and swung him around, slamming him up against the hood of the Camaro. Whatever Mercedes Guy else might be, a hired assassin probably wasn't part of his job description.

  
"How do you know my name?" He had one knee between Mercedes Guy's legs, forcing him backward at a painful angle over the hood of the car. Mercedes Guy gripped the wrist of the hand pushing him down, but he flailed around with his other hand on the surface of the car, seeking balance.

  
Even so, he still had a smart-ass smirk about him. "I know everything about you. Including the fact that you won't really hurt me because you don't think I'm any sort of real threat to you."

  
John let him go abruptly. Mercedes Guy placed both hands on the hood to push himself onto his feet with a little hopping movement. Glancing past John at the open car door, his mouth fell open.

  
"Holy shit." His voice was full of creeped-out awe.

  
John looked over his shoulder to see what was had freaked Mercedes Guy out. The entire door of the car was riddled with bullet holes.

  
"What the fuck?" John asked. He pushed the door shut and they could see that the entire car had been drilled with an automatic weapon. As they stared, the car suddenly sagged, collapsing on its axles.

  
"Shit, you need to get in my car. Hurry. I'll explain on the way."

  
"On the way where?" John said, feeling thick and confused. A sharp pain tore through his side and he reflexively clamped his hand over it. Feeling a warm wetness seeped through his fingers, he looked down and saw that blood was dripping from where he had his hand pressed against his side.

  
_You've got blood on your hands. Again._

  
The words in his head made his vision swim. _It's the heat_ , he thought. It had to be getting to him. He needed to get into the shade. He could hear the rotor noise of a chopper again. They had to make it to the chopper before it was too late to safely get off the ground. His whole team depended on him.

  
Suddenly Mercedes Guy was supporting him. "I've got you." Mercedes Guy spoke quietly in his ear. His voice was a complex harmony of concern, fear, and something that felt akin to affection but wasn't that strong. Or shouldn't be that strong. Because Mercedes Guy didn't know him.

  
"You gave me spearmint gum." The words just came out of his mouth, making a weird sort of sense even though they didn't. He hadn't meant to lean on the guy as they walked to his car, but somehow he was doing it just the same.

  
Mercedes Guy laughed. It was a small noise full of bitter appreciation, a sound that John had heard many times before when a mission had gone FUBAR. "You weren't supposed to remember that. I can't believe you want to talk about gum right now."

  
He tried to ease John into the passenger seat of the SL65, but John ended up dropping with a thump when his legs gave out suddenly. He winced and peeled his hand back from his shirt to stare at the spreading dark stain and the bright red blood on his fingers.

  
Mercedes Guy took John's hand and pressed it back over the injury, holding it there. John watched in fascinated detachment as together, their hands moved in and out with his now-painful breathing.

  
Mercedes Guy pulled his hand away to snap bloody fingers in John's face. "Are you tracking? Good. Now listen, we may not have much time. You've got a couple of choices here. I can take you back inside. Oma can help you. If you do what she says, she can help you Ascend to a higher plane of existence. You won't be human any more. You won't be John Sheppard anymore. You'll be pure energy and whatnot, but it will be an existence, which is more than I can guarantee you right now."

  
"You're telling me I'll die and go to heaven?" John's sarcasm was so scathing it embarrassed him a little. But only a little. "That's your plan?"

  
Mercedes Guy grimaced. Obviously he had a hard time with the concept himself. "I know it sounds ludicrous and smacks of religion, but it's not and it's real and it's an option you need to consider. Unlike Oma," he paused to shoot a dirty look in the direction of the diner before re-directing his laser-like gaze at John, "I believe in being up front with you about your choices."

  
"What's Plan B?"

  
The smile that lit up Mercedes Guy's face took him beyond average and into the realm of 'really attractive.' John had a passing moment of envy for the yoga-teaching wife.

  
"Okay, this isn't going to sound much better, but you can come with me and I can try to get you some help. Only here's where I have to confess that we haven't been up front with you either, but we had our reasons for that. There's more to your story here that you don't know and I can explain it on the way."

  
"Not the place I woke up in this morning, because I'm not going back there." He sucked in his breath with a hiss and pressed his arm more firmly into his side. The wave of pain passed and he let his head fall back against the car seat. He fumbled for the keys in his pocket, lifting a hip obligingly when Mercedes Guy frowned and interceded. Mercedes Guy looked with puzzlement at the keys when he'd retrieved them. "Duffle. In the trunk. Money." John thought his explanation sufficient.

  
"I don't really think...oh, fine!" Mercedes Guy broke off at John's glare and shut the passenger door. He hurried over to the other car, fussing with the keys to find the right one to unlock the trunk. He came back with the duffle, tossed it in the back seat, and jumped in behind the steering wheel. The engine of the SL65 was just as throaty as the Camaro, but smoother, the difference between Jim Beam and Glenfiddich.

  
Though he was in a hurry to get away, Mercedes Guy still drove cautiously, as though he was afraid of getting a ticket. John tipped his head just far enough so that he could watch Mercedes Guy's profile, the way he chewed his lower lip and tapped his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel, looking both ways before pulling out onto the empty desert highway.

  
"Rodney McKay," John said, causing the other man to jerk and duck as though John had slapped him on the back of the head.

  
"What? Oh, yes. I don't know how it is you can remember that, though. You're supposed to be under a memory wipe."

  
John's fingers curled around the seeping place in his side when they hit a pothole. " _Men In Black_? You shine a red light in my eyes and I forget everything?"

  
He could see half of McKay's crooked smile. "Something like that. And like the Men in Black, we have our reasons. National security and all. International, even."

  
"Don't be modest. The whole damn planet."

  
A beat, and then, "Yes. The whole damn planet."

  
"You're thinner." John could remember that much now. This same guy, but heavier set, sleeker. A suit and a supercilious expression. An air of knowing it all and yet trusting John with top secret information, even when he had refused to sign the non-disclosure forms. There were other things he remembered too. A monster behind bars that also knew his name. A cool, dark building with alien equipment that whispered strange promises to him.

  
McKay's face reddened. He looked steadfastly at the road. "You're imagining things."

  
"You have more hair now, too." The McKay he remembered had a pronounced widow's peak and hair that obeyed the office dress code. This guy's hair was fluffier, and wanted to curl in a fringe over his forehead in the manner of the star of an 80's rock band. McKay does Duran Duran.

  
"Nonsense." The short clipped tone was back in McKay's voice. The engine whined in protest as the tachometer climbed.

  
"Shift gears."

  
"Kindly sit over there quietly and bleed to death while I drive, thank you very much." McKay took hold of the gear shift just the same. The car made a terrible grinding noise.

  
"Clutch," John said helpfully before he passed out.

  
****

  
When he opened his eyes next, the sun was sinking over the horizon like a giant paper-thin wafer. A red ball of fire. He was still seated in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, the car parked in the shade of a spindly tree in front of a shabby motel called the Pegasus. The marquee sagged on one side and some of the neon letters were dark. The Pegasus itself was still lit: a rearing, winged horse outlined in a bright blue light against the purple and orange sky of the approaching twilight. McKay was nowhere to be seen.

  
He thought about getting out, grabbing the duffle and walking away, but the lack of energy or even a good goddamn reason stopped him. What difference did it make? No matter where he went, he was still there. He couldn't leave John Sheppard behind.

  
He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes until McKay came back to the car. "I got us a room. I stopped at a drug store and got some supplies, hopelessly inadequate as I'm sure they must be. We'll get you in, cleaned up, make an assessment, and then go from there." McKay gave him a quick, worried glance before turning all of his concentration on driving the car around to the back of the motel.

  
"Here we go," he said, coming around to open the passenger door and help John out. He ducked under one of John's arms and hoisted him up to lean against McKay's sturdy shoulder. They made a slow but steady progress to the motel room. "216." McKay's voice seemed determined to be forcefully cheerful; a guest at a party pretending to have a good time. "Ground floor. Not too far to walk. Let's get you inside."

  
He propped John up against the doorjamb, giving him another worried glance as he carefully let go of John, obviously concerned that he would topple over without any support. John managed the lean without effort. He could almost pretend that everything was all right.

  
McKay's hands hovered in the general vicinity of his torso, ready to catch him should he fall, but still trying to withdraw just the same. He moved with the caution of someone building a house of cards.

  
"Stay." He splayed his fingers wide as he ordered John not to move.

  
"Woof," John said. He felt a little curl of pleasure when McKay shot him a look full of disbelief. _Good_. Let McKay think he was acting out of character.

  
When it was clear that John wasn't going to ooze into a puddle on the cement, McKay pulled out a key card and stuck it into the slot on the door. The lights on the panel went from red to aqua, and McKay turned the handle with a grunt of satisfaction. The room was dark, with blinds pulled shut and the air conditioner running full blast. It was a relief to allow McKay to help him into the blessed black coolness. He didn't even mind the smell of that room freshener ubiquitous to all cheap motels. Instead of the usual overwhelming odor of sickeningly sweet flowers, however, the scent reminded him of linens drying on a clothesline, with the touch of salt air from the sea.

  
McKay shouldered him into the room and propped him up against another wall.

  
"Wait there for a second, if you can. We're headed to the bathroom next, and it'll be easier if you don't sit down on me."

  
John closed his eyes and waited patiently for McKay to return. McKay did so with a slamming of doors, plunging the room into cave-like darkness, save for the thin beam of golden light at the edges of the blinds. McKay by-passed John, where he leaned against the wall like part of the décor, and headed for the bathroom. He switched on a light and set down something on the counter before coming back for John.

  
"Now, let's see what we've got here, shall we?" He sounded like a dentist trying to kid a child into being cooperative; John was tempted to open his mouth wide for viewing. Together, they shuffled sideways into the narrow, brightly lit room.

  
McKay took off John's sunglasses with one hand and tossed them down on the counter beside a small first aid kit and a plastic bag from one of the chain drug stores. John glanced once into the mirror and then looked away. He'd gotten a quick, unforgiving look at himself. He was windblown and dusty, with a small cut under one eye and at least two days worth of stubble. It was the bright red stain against the stark whiteness of his shirt that held his attention in that brief glimpse, however.

  
"Can you stand on your own for a minute? I want to get this shirt off before we sit you down."

  
That simply begged for some smart-ass comment. "Why, McKay," he drawled. "I'm not that kind of guy."

  
McKay, in the act of unbuttoning John's shirt, looked up to give him a long, speaking glance. "Actually, yes, you are," he said at last. He shifted his glance back to the buttons, working the last of them open.

  
John sucked in his breath sharply.

  
McKay chose to read his reaction as pain. "Sorry, sorry. I'll have this off in a minute. Just let me—" He broke off his sentence with a sharp intake of air all his own. "What the fuck?" He patted his hands rapidly over John's skin, searching for the origin of the large amount of blood. He spun quickly, grabbing the end of the toilet paper on its roll by its neatly folded, triangular point, and jerked the roller so that a long sheet spun off of it. He tore it off the roll and wadded it up in his hand, gingerly wiping the blood off John's skin. They both looked down at John's belly.

  
"Where's your bullet wound?"

  
"I don't know. But then I don't know how I got it in the first place, either. Mind telling me just what the hell's going on?"

  
"Oh, _now_ you want to know." McKay poked at John's side experimentally. John smacked his hand away. McKay made a noise of exasperation and threw the bloody tissue paper in the toilet. When he reached for the first aid kit on the counter, John grabbed his arm with one blood-stained hand.

  
"Yeah, I want to know. I want some answers, starting with what have you been keeping from me? How do you know so much about me?"

  
McKay remained annoying cool in the face of John's anger. "Oh, that. When you first appeared on our radar, I checked you out. Interesting record, both what was available to the public and what was off the books. I began to realize that we'd potentially overlooked a major asset, namely you, but we were in the midst of our crisis—on a planetary scale—and rehabilitating the Tramp didn't seem like a good use of time or resources. How ironic that we were wrong. The Tramp saved the day after all, and nearly got gassed at the kennel for his pains."

  
John curled his lip and swung McKay around with force up against the wall in the small bathroom. He caught McKay's other hand and pinned both his wrists next to his ears on the wall, leaning in for good measure. "What are you talking about, McKay?"

  
McKay's pupils widened and his eyes moved rapidly back and forth, searching John's face. "Oh wow, you don't know, do you? You're a hero, Sheppard. You saved the entire planet."

  
"Doesn't sound much like me." John's voice was scratchy. He needed a drink.

  
"You said that before." McKay positively smirked now. "You were wrong."

  
John became aware of the way he was pressing McKay into the wall. He was struck by the sheer mobility of McKay's mouth, the way his lips could thin and flatten with a condescending sneer, yet flare and widen when he spoke with emphasis. A sudden image of McKay on his knees, his competent hands wrapped around John's dick, pursing his lips to encircle John's cock leapt into mind. John's cock approved, straining upward as though it could reach McKay's mouth all by itself.

  
There was no way McKay could have missed that. Not the way John had his dick pressed into McKay's thigh.

  
From the downward flick of McKay's glance and the slow spread of the smile across his face, it was obvious that he _had_ felt it.

  
"Well, you just know all about me, then." John let his voice do the sneering for him. "So how about it, McKay? You and me. Since you know everything. Why don't you tell me what I want?" He gave a little thrust with his hips for good measure.

  
McKay opened his mouth to speak, but obviously thought better of it. He took his lower lip in his teeth, and for the first time, John saw hesitation. To John's surprise, McKay closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wall. His neck was exposed, inviting a nuzzle, a sharp nip. As John watched, he swallowed hard. John's cock moved again, suggesting he get on with it.

  
John didn't get it. Everything about McKay suggested that he wanted this too—he wasn't fighting, his hands were unresisting in John's grip. His pulse pounded beneath John's fingers. He shifted ever so slightly, and John felt the subtle grind of McKay's pelvis against him.

  
It would be a simple matter to lean in and kiss him. There was no reason not to, and yet John didn't know why he hesitated. McKay was practically asking for it, right? Angry with himself, John pressed in, so close he could smell the sweat on McKay's skin, so close that a deep inhale would have John's lips in contact with him. McKay knew it too—John released his breath slowly and McKay shuddered as warm, moist air brushed his skin. John's cock felt hot and heavy between his legs. Goddamn it. He wanted this. McKay wanted this. There was no reason not to take him right here, right up against the wall. McKay wouldn't fight him, hell, he'd bend over and beg for it. John could see them now, half undressed, him pushing McKay down over the bureau. His hands, with his long fingers and skinned knuckles showing up in contrast against McKay's pale skin. Fingers digging in as he pressed in from behind. McKay pushing back against him and crying out for more. Harder. He'd want it hard. He'd take all that John would offer and then some. John could just imagine the little cries he'd make, the sounds when John entered him, the slick and slip of their bodies coming together and apart again, the shuddering moan when John came inside him.

  
_Fuck_. It was enough to make John throw him down and take him on the floor.

  
He tore his gaze off McKay's throat and saw that McKay was watching him through half-shut eyes, breathing hard. _Oh yeah, he wanted this too._

  
"Well?" John asked, smiling when the word caused a slight tremor again.

  
McKay closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was in control once more. "Well, what? Not that I don't want to get fucked by you. I'm betting just about everyone you meet does. But the answer is no."

  
"No?" John let go of McKay's hands to stand up straight, putting some distance between them.

  
McKay folded his arms across his chest, lifting one wry eyebrow. "I bet you don't hear that often. Probably never."

  
"No?" John repeated. He was aware he sounded incredulous. He let his voice fall into its usual drawl. "Not that it matters, but why not? You seem interested enough." He pointed at McKay's dick, which strained against his fly.

  
McKay gave him a rueful grin. "Would you believe me if I told you that I want more from you than just a fuck?" The eyebrow looked self-deprecating now. "No? I don't blame you. I wouldn't either. But if I let you fuck me, you'll be out of here faster than a bat out of hell, and I've got too much invested in you to let that happen. So I'm not going to go there, much as I'd like to. Besides, I don't even think you really like sex itself. It's just one more way of not feeling anything else for a while."

  
John's fist flashed out and punched the wall beside McKay's head, denting the plaster. He'd have to give McKay some credit—the man never even flinched. John stormed out of the bathroom, shaking his fist and muttering curses as soon as he was sure McKay couldn't see him.

  
"Wait."

  
John had the duffle in his left hand and was reaching for the door to the room with his right. He glanced over his shoulder. McKay wasn't following him, just standing in the doorway to the bathroom with an exasperated expression on his face.

  
"Why should I?" John flexed the fingers of his right hand once more for good measure. His blood-stained shirt hung open and he had a passing thought for how he needed to buy some more clothes.

  
"Because you don't know why I have so much invested in you. Because you don't know how you managed to save the world, and a little part of you is curious about that, even though you don't believe it. You want to believe it though. You want to be... redeemed."

  
"Fuck you, McKay." John pulled the door open with force and stepped out into the parking lot.

  
Only it wasn't the parking lot.

  
He was standing in the middle of the fucking desert. He squinted into the bright sun, regretting having left the sunglasses behind. He wasn't about to turn around and go back for them, though. Something skittered at his feet. He looked down between his combat boots and saw a jerboa scurry away with its long, bouncing stride, a mini-kangaroo in the Afghan desert.

  
_Whoa. Wait a second there._

  
He jerked his head around to look behind him, but the hotel was gone. He felt a weight on his shoulders that hadn't been there before, and became aware of the heavy backpack he was wearing. His clothing was desert camo. When he looked up, he could see a small ridge in front of him now. He began walking cautiously toward it.

  
"I can't believe this whole goddamn mess," Lyle said, falling into stride beside him. His voice trembled with rage; his dirty fingers were tight on the grip of his M4 assault rifle. "She never should have been taken. She's a goddamn medic, for Chrissake. She doesn't have the training for this."  
"We'll get her back, Holland." John didn't make promises he didn't intend to keep, but this one made him sick inside. He knew what was coming, and yet he could not stop himself from playing it out.

They reached the ridge and crept up in on their bellies. John removed the backpack from his shoulders and took out a pair of binoculars. Peering up over the edge of the small bluff, he saw a silver Airstream trailer parked in the middle of the desert, next to some power lines.  
 _WTF?_

  
"He's got her in there. That fucking monster. He's got my sister and he's going to suck her dry."

  
"Not going to happen." John spoke with an assurance he didn't feel. He reached for his gun to find a silver automatic instead. Raising an eyebrow and wishing for something with a little more kick to it, like say, an AK-47 or a P-90, he checked the clip and added a second clip to one of his pockets. He peered up over the ridge again and ducked back down.

  
"Okay. See that Camaro out there? I'm going to make for that—you cover me. There's only one way in and out of the trailer. We're going to have to storm the castle through the front gate." He grinned at Lyle. "Once I get into place, if you can sneak around to the back and throw a round of tear gas through one of the windows, we can force them out."

  
Lyle took one grimy hand off his gun and grasped John's arm. "They're going to crucify us when we get back you know. Your career was over the moment you agree to fly us in."

  
"You think I was going to let you go alone?" John reached across and gripped Lyle's hand. "Alicia's family, you moron."

  
Lyle smiled grimly back at him. He slid his hand out from under John's and clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go do a little Wraith whoop-ass, then."

  
The first bullet struck him in the chest before he made it to the car. Glancing down in shock at the blooming red rose of blood beneath his collarbone, he dove behind the car. A fuselage of bullets rained out of the window of the trailer. John popped up to shoot at the window, hoping to god he hit whoever was firing at him. He was seriously outgunned here.

  
Another wave of bullets pinged off the car, shattering glass, puncturing the metal sides and slicing into his skin. He fumbled for the second clip, couldn't find it, and remembered there was one in the glove compartment. He dove into the front seat of the car, only to find something sitting upright in the passenger seat.  
He thought it was a crash dummy at first. A badly used version of Buster, the dummy routinely tortured by the guys on _Mythbusters_. The figure was a dry, empty husk, with wisps of reddish brown hair attached in tufts to a leathery skull. It was dressed in standard desert BDUs. It was on the small side, which made it more heartbreaking than horrific somehow. John reached up and grabbed at the dangling dog tags.

  
_Holland, Alicia._

  
He back-pedaled away from the mummified corpse as best he could under the barrage of bullets. _Christ, no_. What the hell was he going to tell Lyle?

  
The gunfire ceased. John lifted his head and looked beyond Alicia to the trailer. The door opened, and a pale skinned man wearing black and carrying automatic weapons stepped out without fear.

  
_This must be what Death looks like._

  
John pushed Alicia's dry bones aside and rested a bloodied hand on the windowsill of the car door, emptying his clip at the approaching figure.  
It made no difference. The pale-skinned man jerked with the impact of each bullet, but kept walking toward the car, swinging his weapons up to bear on John's position.

  
"Noooooo!" Lyle roared with rage and anguish, standing up from his place behind the ridge and running at the man in black, firing as he came down the bank.

  
"Goddamn it, Holland, no!" John heaved himself up in an attempt to get out of the car in time, but Death brought his weapons around in a swinging arc and mowed Lyle down as he ran. John opened the passenger-side door and crawled out, dragging Alicia's body with him as he tumbled to the ground. He shot from his position underneath the door at Death, scooting backward when Death whirled to face him again.

  
The _click-click_ of the empty chamber told him the game was up. He was damned if he was going to go down without a fight, though. He could smell gasoline. The fuel tank on the car had been hit. Now if he could just find some matches...

  
Death walked slowly toward him. John could hear the crunch of gravel underneath Death's boots. He couldn't think about Alicia. Wouldn't think about Holland. A match. A match. _My kingdom for a match._

  
The whine of angry hornets overhead made him smile. Fighter jets. Help was on the way, even if everyone that had come on this godforsaken rescue mission was going to end up a casualty of friendly fire. _The buck stops here._

  
Death reacted to the sight of the incoming jets with an inarticulate and indescribably alien roar of sound. He dropped his weapons and ran back for the trailer, crashing into the doorframe in his haste to make it back inside. The ground in front of the trailer was pocked with bullets as the World War II Spitfires made their strafing runs. The trailer blew up in a ball of green fire, the resulting shock wave of which knocked John off his feet just as he was attempting to stand.  
The sun was setting when John opened his eyes next. Bits of burning trailer and car were all around him. The air was thick with an acrid smoke, but that's not why it was hard to breathe. He got to his feet in stages, using the engine block of the car to pull himself up.

  
Lyle.

  
If it was the last thing he did, he had to find out if Holland was really dead.

  
He dragged one foot in front of the other, conscious that he was running out of time. There was some unwritten rule that said he had to reach Holland before the sun went down, though why he knew this, he had no idea. Holland lay face down at the bottom of the ridge, one hand outstretched on his weapon.

  
John stumbled and almost went down. Shuffling his feet in front of him, he kept his gaze fixed on the ground until a big drop of blood splattered on the toe of his boot. He looked up again to see how far it was to reach Holland. This time, a woman in white, with a golden nimbus of light surrounding her, was standing between him and Lyle.

  
"There was nothing you could have done." She spoke quietly, but somehow her voice carried over the sound of the hiss and bubble of burning rubble. John realized he was hearing it in his head. He kept walking with grim determination forward, each step a lurching movement, as though his legs were being pulled by marionette strings that he did not control.

  
"Alicia was dead before you even set out on the mission. You know that now."

  
John had to lick his lips before he spoke. "Thanks for reminding me."

  
"Captain Holland would have died regardless of whether or not you went with him. It was only by virtue of the fact you agreed to fly him and the others in that they got as far as they did."

  
"Tell that to the officers at my court martial."

  
"Is that why you chose to settle in the Nevada desert? So you could look out every morning on a landscape that reminded you of the one in Afghanistan? Is that why you wear a silver cross? To commemorate the deaths of the friends you could not save? Or is it to replace the dog tags they took from you, the emblem of your service, your oath of loyalty? It was not enough that you lost everything, was it? You had to torture yourself with it every day." Oma shook her head sadly.

  
"We went in to rescue Alicia Holland because I said I could get them there and back again!" Spittle flew with the force of his words, and when he wiped his chin, it was bloody. John pulled himself to a halt in front of her. To get to Holland, he would have to go around her, and he wasn't sure that he had the strength.

Nothing about this made any sense to him. It was like some weird dream. Maybe Holland wasn't dead. He had to know. "Out of my way."

  
"It is not necessary. The past need not hold you any longer. You can choose. You can come with me." She held out her hand. The glowing light seemed to swirl off of it and reach in a tendril toward John.

  
"Out of my way," he repeated, swaying a bit. If he fell down now, he knew he would not get up again.

  
"Out of my way, what, John?" Oma was ever so slightly reproving.

  
"Out of my way, bitch."

  
Oma disappeared. John took a step forward, only to have his legs give away. He staggered forward, stumbling in an effort to stay on his feet as he closed the distance between him and Holland. He went down hard on his hands and knees. Pressing the pain back under control, he tucked one arm into his abdomen and held it there, before collapsing slowly onto his side. It was getting darker now. He was running out of time. He reached out and touched the back of Lyle's head, felt the softness of his hair under the layer of dirt.

  
His hand went still when he felt movement beneath his fingers.

  
Rodney McKay lifted his bloody face from the ground to stare at John in blank surprise before grimacing in pain. He tried to move and yelped, pulling one hand out from under him to stare at his own blood with a horrified expression. "Okay, okay, okay." He seemed to be talking to himself as he rolled his eyes around to take in his surroundings. He lasered his focus back in on John. "Listen to me, Sheppard. None of this is real. We're in an Ancient reality. You get it, none of this is real."

  
John could feel a heaviness stealing over his chest. It would be so simple to just close his eyes. "No problem then." He grinned, tasting blood.

  
"No! I mean yes! Because you control the environment here. I mean, you weren't up until today, only you _were_ sort of, which no one has really been able to explain to my satisfaction but—" McKay broke off with a long keening sort of sound as he tried to move again. He gave up, panting a bit. When he spoke again, it was with an effort. "You control the environment. Remember back in the hotel? You were bleeding and then suddenly you weren't. For some reason it was important to you to stop bleeding, so the bullet wound went away."

  
"This isn't _real_?" A flare of anger rose up in John from embers he'd thought long since put out. "It's not fucking real?" He pushed himself up on one elbow to glare at McKay. "What do you call this then, Season Eight of _Dallas_?" Something gave inside with his movement, and he could feel his anger draining away with his blood. He sagged back down to the ground.

  
"The fact that you even know that," McKay huffed, wincing again as he rolled on his side, "is seriously disturbing to me. Might even be a deal-breaker in terms of a relationship. And it's real enough. We're both dying here. I took the safeties offline." McKay lay coiled on his side now, facing him as though they were lying together in bed.

  
"I don't do relationships anymore. I... can't." It was the most honest he'd been in years.

  
McKay just stared at him, those pale blue eyes locking onto him and not letting him go. "I know. I can wait." As he spoke, however, the light in his eyes seemed to dim. He lost focus and let his gaze fall sideways to the ground.

  
"Give me one good reason not to die," John whispered, not certain that McKay could even hear him anymore. The ground was soaking up their blood the way the desert sand drinks in much needed rain.

  
"Oh, that." McKay's eyes were closed now, but his voice retained a bit of its former superiority. "There's another Ancient spaceship here in Area 51. Has to be." He coughed, and his fingers dug into the ground, blood and dirt mixing beneath his nails. It took him a while to regain his breath. "Why else would you be drawn to this part of the world?" The words wheezed out of him. "I think you can find it. I think it wants you to find it."

  
John closed his eyes too, thinking how easy it would be to fall asleep each evening to the sound of McKay going on about something that excited him. He liked the idea of a spaceship hidden somewhere in the desert. A much better reason for his ending up here than what Oma had suggested—an exercise in self-flagellation. A ship that had been waiting millennia for the right person to come along. A pilot. Someone who could hear her songs and understand them. Someone who could take her home. Surely that was worth living for, right?

  
_Come find me_ , the voice whispered.

  
"It's your choice," Rodney said. He gave a little flick of his fingers as he spoke, and then stilled.

  
****

  
John woke with a start to find himself nose to nose with Rodney McKay. He lifted his head slowly, his eyebrows vying with each other to see which could twist itself into the most quizzical form. He glanced down at himself. His white shirt was still unbuttoned, but there was no longer any blood on it. No blood on his skin, either. He was still wearing his jeans and boots, too.

  
McKay was dressed as he had been before, but his hair was no longer quite as thick or as blond, and the fringe of curls had receded. His mouth was open and he was drooling, something John intended on bringing up again at some future point.

  
The fact that he even considered that kind of petty revenge was saying something.

  
McKay lay on his right side, his left hand curled into his chest as though he might be about to suck his thumb. That struck John as future fodder material as well, until he noticed that McKay was wearing a wedding ring.

  
_Right. The wife that teaches yoga, remember?_

  
Disappointment flickered and died. It didn't matter. John rolled off the bed and crossed over to the duffle. He didn't even look back over his shoulder when he left the room.

  
****

  
Rodney blinked and opened his eyes. Unless he was dreaming, someone was gently waving a large cup of Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee in front of his nose. He reached for it, only to have the cup snatched away.

  
"Ah-ah," Sheppard said, looking cool and dangerous behind his shades and his three day stubble. Rodney lifted his head, conscious that he'd left a wet spot on his pillow. He wiped his cheek surreptitiously and glared out of habit.

  
Sheppard was wearing a plaid cotton shirt in pale blue, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Even with the shades, he looked somehow more relaxed. The silver cross around his neck glinted in the morning sun when Sheppard entered the beam of light streaming in through the open blinds. A feast fit for a twelve year old was laid out on the table. Rodney gave a jaw-cracking yawn as he stiffly rose out of bed. He scratched his belly as he glanced at the food. Jelly-filled doughnuts sat next to a second cup of coffee, along with a couple of bananas, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of Wonder Bread. "You planning to share?"

  
"When you tell me what I want to know." Sheppard took a big bite of his doughnut and licked the filling off his fingers. _Bastard_. Rodney happened to know Sheppard didn't like sweet food for breakfast.

  
With a massive eyeroll, Rodney headed for the bathroom, flipping Sheppard the bird as he did so. He wasn't sure but he thought he heard a soft snort from behind him. When he came out, Sheppard was leaning against the window, resting his ass on the sill. Most of his doughnut was still on the napkin on the table. _Hah. I knew he wouldn't eat that._ Rodney made a beeline for the food and the coffee.

  
"Not until you talk first." Sheppard made as if to stop him, but Rodney interrupted.

  
"I can talk and eat at the same time." And he did. He explained the situation at the SGC. Reminded Sheppard of the bits he'd forgotten, the threat of the Wraith invasion, and the series of mummified bodies, all while polishing off two of the cream-filled doughnuts and a third of a banana, chasing everything down with huge swallows of coffee.

  
Sheppard listened in silence when Rodney told him how he'd tracked the Wraith to a trailer in the desert, and that he'd called Rodney to tell him where the Wraith could be found.

  
"I don't know why you didn't wait." Rodney shook his head. "It certainly wasn't your job to take out the Wraith. Maybe you were just acting on instinct, but your gut was right. The Wraith was on the verge of sending a signal to his home galaxy, calling all his Wraith buddies in to the biggest feeding ground they'd ever known. If you hadn't distracted him until the fighter jets were scrambled and sent to his location..."

  
"I stopped him by letting him use me as target practice. Doesn't sound too bright to me." Sheppard made that face that Rodney was coming to know so well, the one where he curled his upper lip in a sneer and tipped his head slightly to one side.

  
"It worked. And though I wasn't there in reality, I'm guessing the events played out in a similar fashion to what we saw in the shoot-out here." Rodney waggled a finger in the general direction of the parking lot. "That is, if your memories were a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick."

  
This earned him another small smile and he felt unreasonably pleased that Sheppard got the reference.

  
"Well, that explains a few things." Sheppard touched the silver cross around his neck. Rodney wondered what he was thinking.

  
"No gloves." Sheppard's comment came out of left field.

  
"What?"

  
"It was driving me nuts. There I was bleeding all over the place and you never even thought about putting on gloves. I couldn't figure out why."

  
"Yes, well." Rodney cleared his throat. "If you hadn't gone in guns ablazing when you did, the Wraith would have gotten the signal off before we could find him. As it was, it was a very close thing. So, whether you like it or not, you're a hero."

  
"Don't call me that."

  
Sheppard was serious. Rodney could tell he was one second from bolting.

  
"Right, then. Note to self: no use of the H word." Rodney mimed writing himself a note and was deeply satisfied when the corner of Sheppard's mouth twitched. "Just so you know, however, it's because of the whole H thing that we've gone to such efforts to keep you and your body alive." Rodney folded a large chunk of doughnut into his mouth and washed it down with coffee. _Nirvana._

  
"Do what?" Sheppard pulled down his shades just far enough to peer over them at Rodney.

  
"Yes, well, when we arrived on the scene, purely for clean up and containment, mind you, fancy our surprise when we discovered that you were still alive. Just barely, but alive all the same. You take a lot of killing, you know that right?"

  
"Yes." The word was terse. Sheppard's mouth was back to being tight again. He pushed the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose.

  
"Right. Anyhow, you were too far gone to evac you by traditional methods, so we had you beamed aboard the _Daedalus_."

  
"Beamed. As in Star Trek, beamed?"

  
Rodney shrugged. "The idea is the same. The Asgard have been present in some form on Earth for decades. Who's to say that Roddenberry wasn't influenced in some way by them?"

  
"Uh-huh." Sheppard held his cup of coffee without drinking it.

  
"Anyway, as I was saying," Rodney glared at Sheppard for interrupting, "you were beamed to the infirmary on board the _Daedalus_. But even Asgard technology couldn't keep your bullet-riddled body alive. We ended up putting you in stasis."

  
"Is that where we are now?" Sheppard waved his coffee cup in the direction of the room. "Some sort of virtual reality while I'm in stasis?"

  
"No, not really. Well, okay, that was a really good guess. Close, but no cigar." Rodney felt a little stab of triumph at Sheppard's surprise. "No, we... okay, this is where it gets a bit complicated, we'd come across this other alien technology—nanites. They're these little tiny robots, well, more like single-cell organisms if you will, but like the cells in your body, they have the power to heal and repair."

  
"I know what nanites are, McKay." Sheppard's voice was sour, the tone of someone smarter than they are usually given credit for being. Rodney reminded himself that Sheppard was indeed a smart man. Could have been in MENSA, had he bothered to join.

  
"Well, these are _alien_ nanites, and we've had a terrible time controlling them. Left to their own devices, they would replicate without limit—I mean literally out of control, destroying everything in their path as raw materials to re-create new structures."

  
"Like the Genesis project. In _The Wrath of Khan_."

  
"No, it was the third movie, _The Search for Spock_ , in which we learned that the Genesis device had rebuilt him from his DNA. And okay, not _everything_ has been done by Star Trek first." Rodney heard the testiness in his voice and didn't give a rat's ass. "With the corrective coding to prevent free replication in place, the nanites couldn't fix a bad tooth, let alone heal your extensive wounds. I've been working for months to solve the coding problem. In the meantime, however, we had this Ancient device, see, and we didn't really know what it did, but it sort of sucked you out of your body and into it." Rodney spoke the last part of this sentence very rapidly, hoping Sheppard wouldn't freak.

  
He just sat there, his back against the glass, eyes shielded and unreadable once more behind the shades.

  
"Sucked me out of my body," he said at last. It wasn't really a question, more of a flat statement.

  
"Um, yes." Rodney tapped his fingers together a few times.

  
"Like maybe on purpose sucked me out? Because I'm thinking I didn't just walk past this thing and have it accidentally turn on."

  
Rodney's face burned with sudden heat. "I know it probably seems to you as though we treated you as one giant lab experiment." He winced when he remembered Jennifer's words along those lines. "It wasn't really like that at all. We were trying to save your life. If you only knew..." He leaned forward and pounded the table with one fist in frustration. "Every time I altered the code to allow the nanites to heal your body, they worked beautifully—right up to the point where they had nothing new to heal. In order to keep them from killing you, I had to keep _hurting_ you. You know, to give them something else to do." Nausea roiled in his guts, threatening a surprise re-appearance of his breakfast. He wasn't so hungry any more.

  
John's expression behind his sunglasses gave nothing away. His lips, however, pursed slightly before tightening again.

  
"Seriously, it sucked." Rodney pushed himself back from the table and folded his arms. "I had to come up with something, or else leave you permanently in stasis. Then Jennifer, Dr. Keller, that is, got the bright idea of using the Ancient device on you. We didn't know what it did. I was hoping it was a healing device, or at the very least, something that would give us control over the nanites. You can imagine our shock when it transferred your consciousness within it." Rodney gave a weak smile. With any luck, Sheppard would believe it had been no big deal. "You have the Ancient Technology Activation gene—the gene that allows you to work the Ancient technology—because somewhere in your illustrious ancestry, one of your relatives slept with an Ancient and didn't know it. You are one of the rare percentage of the population who can interface with the Ancient devices."

  
"Lucky me."

  
"It _is_ lucky, and quite unusual too. Even among the few people who have the ATA gene, the gene is dormant in vast majority of us. I underwent gene therapy to bring out the latent gene, but those of us with dormant genes have nothing like the ability you naturals do to handle the equipment." Envy wasn't a useful emotion, so Rodney pressed on. "Because I have the ATA gene, I was able to keep tabs on your activity within the device, and also to modify the programming while I continued to work on the coding problem."

  
"You must like puzzles."

  
It seemed like the most nonsensical statement to Rodney. "Well, yes. Why?"

  
Sheppard ignored his question. "And the other people I've seen here? Like the guy in the gas station?"

  
Rodney could tell Sheppard was frowning by the furrowing of his brow. He couldn't help it, he grinned. "Ah, that's the beauty of it. I could do some rudimentary programming but you kept altering various parameters. It was really quite cool, you know. I kept resetting the program to the basic mode every day, so that it wouldn't proceed to god knows what conclusion, which we now know is probably Ascension." Rodney paused a moment to savor the satisfaction of figuring that out. "Which, um, well, kept you in a state of amnesia. So the fact that elements of your life kept creeping into the program was utterly fascinating. You weren't introduced, but you had seen Zelenka during your tour of our facilities in Area 51. And Dr. Keller you'd met previously at the morgue. The thing is, you shouldn't have been able to remember any of them, and yet you kept introducing them into the program." Rodney couldn't explain the other elements that had crept into the reality—things Sheppard shouldn't have had any knowledge about. They obviously needed to explore this device further.

  
"And Oma?"

  
Rodney shrugged, rolling his eyes at the same time as he turned his palms outward. "Who the fuck knows? She's an Ancient. They have their own set of rules. My guess is she was part of the original program created to help people reach Ascension, and that she's not really here. The Ancients seemed to have a bug about that. Ascension, that is." Rodney frowned, remembering belatedly they were still in the Ancient Ascension device.

  
"How long?" Sheppard ground out.

  
"That you've been in the device? A couple of months. Say, a third of a year, perhaps?"

  
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Sheppard got to his feet.

  
"Wait! Wait!" Rodney stood up as well. "Look, I'm pretty sure we got all the bugs worked out of the nanites. I was able to activate them, have them heal the residual damage caused from the last round of trauma we induced, and then they went into a dormant mode as planned."

  
"Why am I hearing a 'but' here?"

  
Really, that drawl might get on his nerves one day. One day. Rodney sighed. "Well, there's some concern that the nanites could reactivate themselves if faced with another critical injury. That you could, in effect, now be immortal."

  
The laugh really surprised Rodney. It was the last thing he expected. An explosion of temper, some good old fashioned cursing, slamming his way out the door—these he would have expected from Sheppard. The laugh started out small but built into a horrible braying sound. It was hideous, yet infectious at the same time. Rodney couldn't help but smile.

  
"I'm glad you see the humor in this," Rodney said, when the horrible noise finally died down.

  
"Irony, not humor," Sheppard drawled. "Let me guess. They don't want you to put me back in my own body."

  
Rodney spread his hands wide as he shrugged. "Can you blame them? You've done nothing in this reality here but try to run every day. The thought of an immortal man on the loose, answering to no one, has got a few people a little nervous."

  
Sheppard nodded. "I'd be nervous too."

  
"Take off your sunglasses."

  
Sheppard didn't move for a long moment, but then he set his cup of coffee down and removed his aviators, hanging them in the V of the neckline of his shirt. Damn the man, he could even make plaid look good.

  
"I want to put you back in your body. I took the safeties offline to see what would happen here, and you know what? You chose to live and come back 'here' with me." Rodney indicated the hotel room with finger quotes. "I want you back in your body because you have the ATA gene. Even for a natural, you've shown more potential for handling the technology than most of the people who've undergone years of training. We _need_ you in your own body because that gene is going to help me find the ship that I know is out there, the whole reason Area 51 is such a weird magnet for alien technology. Face it, the Wraith are still out there, and they're going to keep looking for us. They aren't the only bad guys in the universe either. We need all the technical advantages we can get. And I want you back in your body because I think you deserve better than this." He indicated the shabby hotel room.

  
"You took the safeties offline."

  
"Yes." Rodney frowned, not sure where Sheppard was going with this.

  
"You're not just a figment of my imagination, then. Back in the desert, you said we were both dying. So are you saying you entered the program—this device—as well?"

  
Rodney's brow cleared. "Like I said, the ATA gene is pretty rare. I thought I might be able to alter the programming from within, if necessary. I was getting a lot of pressure to pull the plug on you. Literally. I didn't want that to happen."

  
"You entered this device. You let yourself—your consciousness or whatever—get sucked into this alien thing, not knowing what it would do to you?"

  
Rodney's face flushed again. Maybe he could blame it on sunburn. He certainly hoped that Jennifer had been sensible about what to do with his body after he'd connected himself to the device and pushed that button. After all, she was a doctor. "Um, yes?"

  
"You're insane!" Sheppard looked appalled.

  
"I thought it was worth the risk. I thought _you_ were worth the risk!" Rodney shouted.

  
Sheppard looked at him aghast for an instant before a cool mask of indifference slid over his features. "Why do you do that?"

  
"Do what?"

  
"Play with your wedding ring. You've done it at least three times during this conversation."

  
Rodney looked down at his hands, almost startled by the presence of the gold band. "I...er... have a wife."

  
"No shit. Really?"

  
Rodney slumped his shoulders and tipped his head sideways at Sheppard, making sure his smile was as nasty as possible. "In name only. It's complicated, okay? Look, I don't have to tell you my whole life's story right now. I didn't ask you for yours when we met, did I?"

  
"No, you told it to me instead." Sheppard looked as though he thought about saying something more, and Rodney couldn't help but be encouraged by the questioning. He knew Sheppard had a thing about loyalty. He'd never cheat on someone or with someone, so the very fact that he asked about the ring sent a surge of hope though Rodney. Which made it all the more disappointing when Sheppard let the topic drop and put back on the sunglasses. "So what now?"

  
"So what now? You have three choices. You can stay here and find Oma. You can Ascend."

  
"Not the Ascending type." Sheppard folded his arms and leaned against the window again. "Option two?"

  
"You can stay here in this reality. I'll find my own way out." Rodney did not add the word 'hopefully' but it hung there between them anyway. "I can reset the program to wipe your memories again. I did that as a kindness, you know. It wasn't meant to be cruel."

  
"I know." Sheppard swallowed, the action moving his Adam's apple and drawing Rodney's gaze to the delectable lines of his throat. "Thanks."

  
Just the act of swallowing was mesmerizing. Maybe Jennifer was right. Maybe he was obsessed. Rodney cleared his throat. "Or you can come with me. We both go back to our bodies. You let the military re-instate you. They tell me you'll even be promoted. If you say yes to that, everyone will feel more comfortable with the idea that you'll stay around. If you run with the nanites, I can't guarantee they won't hunt you down."

  
Sheppard pointed to the duffle. "At least I get to keep the money, right?"

  
Rodney made a face. "Sorry, it blew up with the real car."

  
They sat in silence for a long moment.

  
"Damn it." Sheppard said, pushing himself off the window in a resigned manner. "I liked that car." He headed for the door to the parking lot and opened it. He paused, obviously waiting for Rodney to join him.

  
"Space-ship." Rodney dragged the words out into two sing-song syllables as he hurried to catch up before Sheppard left without him.

  
"So you say. Don't see one yet." Sheppard looked out into the parking lot, thumbs tucked into the pockets of his jeans. The sun was burning down out of the sky now, bathing the parking lot in an intense, red-gold light. "I gotta tell you, McKay, I think your people need to do something about that KFC logo in the desert."

  
The non-sequitur caught Rodney off-guard. "Excuse me, what?" He shut the hotel room door behind him out of habit. He certainly hoped Sheppard knew how to get out of this thing and that Jennifer, bless her, had followed the detailed instructions Rodney had left behind for reviving the two of them.

  
"I'm just saying," Sheppard drawled. "'Finger-licking good'? Kinda sends the wrong message, don't you think?"

  
Rodney squawked out a laugh, quickly suppressing it. Sheppard made a joke. There might just be hope for the man yet.

  
They walked together away from the building toward the car.

  
"I'll drive," Sheppard said, holding out his hand for the keys.

  
"You sure you know which way to go?" Now was not a good time to show doubt, but then when was it ever a good time? He handed over the keys with misgivings. Sheppard said nothing, but flipped the keys around on one finger, catching them in his hand.

  
Rodney went around to the passenger-side door and got in. Sheppard slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes like he was born to it, and Rodney realized there was truth in that.

  
"Toward the sun." Sheppard indicated the giant red sun, wavering on the horizon.

  
"Oh, how nice, I really like clichés."

  
Sheppard grinned as he put the key in the ignition. "For the record," he said, suddenly leaning over to Rodney's side and whispering into his ear, "I do too like sex."

  
"Good," Rodney said as the light around the car grew more intense. "Because I intend to make you _love_ it."

  
~fin


End file.
